...the Epcot centre is a symbol of increased American isolationism because, get this, he says "it prepackages culture into bite size pieces of stereotypical servings." I don't know what the hell that is supposed to mean, maybe he's talking about the food.

He’s going too far this time, this long haired iconoclast (whatever that means, sounds like anarchist and antichrist tho’ so you know it can’t be good) Besmirching the good name of that great American institution Walt Disney. I mean how could you not find anything more wholesome and family oriented then that. The wife and I took the kids down a couple years ago and we had a great time. The kids really liked the animal safari thing; we heard people who had been on a real trip to Africa say it was really better then going, what with not having to put up with the poor hotels and roads over there and all the beggars; the animals looked so real.

Disney, no matter which one you go to, is a great place and I think only a real negative person could get all up in arms about the things this guy goes on about. First he say it’s ironic (have you ever noticed how all these cynical types call everything ironic, it makes them sound intelligent or something) that Disney has built a safari ride preaching conservation when the whole complex is in the delicate eco-system of the Florida Everglades, destroying valuable habitat and upsetting the water table. Goodness it’s just swamp land, what could live there aside from some alligators and such that no one is going to miss, and Disney has its own water supply and disposal anyway, so I don’t see how they’re doing anything to the water table, whatever he means by that.

Then he has the nerve to say that the Epcot centre is a symbol of increased American isolationism because, get this, he says “it prepackges culture into bite size pieces of stereotypical servings.” I don’t know what the hell that is supposed to mean, maybe he’s talking about the food. But like I said before it was a good education for the kids, and us to I might add, to see all those people dressed in their natural clothing doing their normal day to day stuff. It shows you just how different everyone in the world really is, but after seeing some of the things other guys were forced to wear (I didn’t know all Arab men wore some sort of dress) I’m not about to change in my jeans, no matter how quaint the wife thinks it. (I almost slapped the youngest upside the head for making comments about my legs and those skirts the Scottish guys had on, the kid’s got quite the lip on him.)

But he’s not satisfied with just attacking Disney World, now he’s going after their movies too. Now I didn’t think much of that Hidalgo thing, what with having that foreign guy Viggo something staring in it and all the nasty things he’s had to say about our government, and I didn’t think that subject matter was exactly family oriented (showing our army in a bad light for doing something that had to be done to preserve our country) but to here him ridiculing it as nothing but the “made up fantasies of a wannabe western hero” is just downright degrading to the memory of Tom Hopkins, one of the last real living cowboys upon whose autobiography they based the movie. The nerve of him implying that the race in the movie never even took place. He bases that on the testimony of a few Arabs who claim to be from families who have bred horses for generations and have never heard of The Ocean of Fire, and the fact that he says in order to travel that amount of distance in Africa you’d have to go down as far as the country of South Africa. He doesn’t have to get all literal minded, I’m sure the course had a few twists and turns in it to make up any differences he thinks there were.

But it gets worse. Now’s he’s turned his sights on the Pirate movies. You remember the first one a couple of years ago: The Curse of The Black Pearl (a great ride at the park too, my youngest lost his lunch on it though: never give a kid a hot dog, fires, and shake before going on a ride). That Johnny Depp is a little suspect, living in France and all, and I thought they should have done something about making him a little less fruity (the wife wondered how long it took him to put on his face every morning, I said it couldn’t be anywhere near as long a time as it took her). But aside from that it was great fun for all of us. How many live movies are there for the whole family to see these days?

Anyhow, Mr. Iconoclast has got himself all hot under the collar about the way in which some locals are begin portrayed in the upcoming parts two and three being shot in the Dominican Republic. It seems over the years they got the reputation as being cannibals (I say where there’s smoke there’s fire) which they deny (would you admit that your grandfather ate someone) and they are objecting to the fact that Disney is going to have them trying to eat the main characters. Well geez what does it matter anyway, its just a movie, can’t you folk lighten up. Haven’t they heard the saying: Any publicity is good publicity.

But he’s not done running down Walt Disney yet; infringing upon freedom of speech by refusing to distribute that unpatriotic garbage by Michael Moore (you couldn’t pay me to see that), that the truly heartwarming Polar Express invalidates other beliefs by preaching only by believing in Santa Claus can you be happy, and perpetrating stereotypes with movies like Aladdin.

Mr. Iconoclast is so typical of these doom sayers today, raining on everyone’s parade and trying to ruin things for the rest of us. I think a lot of the worlds troubles could be eased if people like him just stopped mouthing off and stopped trying to upset people. All that it does is make people have doubts about those things they should just accept as facts of life. I’m sure the situation in Iraq would be over by now if more people just supported our troops and our government and stopped asking questions. It sure would make things a lot easier anyway.

About Richard Marcus

Richard Marcus is the author of two books commissioned by Ulysses Press, “What Will Happen In Eragon IV?” (2009) and “The Unofficial Heroes Of Olympus Companion”. Aside from Blogcritics his work has appeared around the world in publications like the German edition of Rolling Stone Magazine and the multilingual web site Qantara.de. He has been writing for Blogcritics.org since 2005 and has published around 1900 articles at the site.